Page:Philosophical Review Volume 12.djvu/662

646 morality intelligible, and there is every reason to hope that it will do more in the future than in the past.

But while scientific, ethics does not boast of mathematical precision. The complexity of the subject is very great, and must be borne in mind by the reader of scientific works on ethics, else he will probably demand an exactness of statement which no one is prepared to make. Precise mathematical laws holding in the realm of morals have not been discovered. Rigid formulæ such as one finds in mechanics there are none. As Aristotle remarked long ago: "An educated person will expect accuracy in each subject only so far as the nature of the subject allows; he might as well accept probable reasoning from a mathematician as require demonstrative proofs from a rhetorician." "Our statement of the case will be adequate, if it be made with all such clearness as the subject-matter admits."

In this respect ethics is in similar case with such sciences as economics. No one expects an economist to lay down laws of the relations between supply and demand so exact that, given the number of persons who shall within a month desire to buy a certain commodity, and the amount of that commodity then available, any calculator can sit down and compute the exact price at which that commodity can be had in open market thirty days hence. The shrewd merchant and the successful speculator are engaged in such problems as this, and the uncertainty of their calculations shows that they have no infallible formula to fall back on. A civil engineer can tell quite exactly how many cubic yards must be excavated from a hillside in order to secure a road-bed of a certain grade and a certain breadth; but no manufacturer, unless he is working under contract, can tell with like precision how many yards of cloth he should turn out in order to be sure of securing a certain price for the cloth. There are too many unknown factors in the problem. If conditions remain very much the same as they have been, his calculations may be quite accurate; but an unreasonable financial panic, weather unparalleled even 'in the memory of the oldest inhabitant,' some new device in manufacture, these and a hundred